[Guest]

Regarding the Tamron - it is basically a standard zoom lens like any other. Most them are soft at close focus distances.

However, the Canon goes officially down to 1:1.4. This is a different marketing statement and as such you have different expectations here. Consequently there is an explicit statement about this here. 

To be fair - the results are obviously very sharp here at f/8 - assuming that you hit the focus point.

 

Klaus,

 

I think his point was that it appears you didn't actually use the Lens' macro mode for this test...so you never tested out this feature. You literally have to turn the lens into macro mode via the switch. Via my own testing this sharpens up the picture dramatically at close focus distances.